What’s your history with Brighton? 

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Bill: I moved to Brighton when I was 19, in order to pursue a fine art painting degree at the University of Brighton, which was significantly interrupted for me because of COVID-19.
So my history with Brighton has been rather fragmentary between my home in North London and difference living situations, interspersed with my own travelling and periods of studio space. 
Since graduating, through friends and social media, I’ve worked to achieve and establish my own Studio practice as an artist, and developed very strong friendships in social circles from being involved in exhibitions, and being a lover of music here. 

 

Ben: My history in Brighton has been pretty short, I only moved down in September of 2023 after I graduated from The Slade School of Fine Art in London. Before that I had done a couple exhibitions at spaces in Brighton as I knew quite a lot of the students at the Brighton art University a painting course. I was drawn to Brighton and wanted to escape London whilst still having a way to connect with it, as well as wanting to live by the sea. 

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You are both artists, tell us about your art practice? 

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Bill: Rather more recently in the last few years, I take a huge interest in teaching myself new skills and working across multimedia to pursue my own interest in making imagery and developing relationships with materials. 
I work between my studio and my own bedroom and so a lot of autobiographic content, as I consider it, makes its way into pattern based collage pieces and structural 3-D sculpture. From things that I’ve found, the side of the street. Consumed and Collected. Things that I’m visually drawn to, which are quite naive and playfully coloured. 
I’m drawn to make things. What I produce and share as an art practice comes around from these material leftovers in my life. 

Also, as a result, I experiment with certain fabrics and processes involved in sewing machine collage, and painterly processes and solutions. Staining/bleeding, and subsequent embellishment, can happen to make landscape appearances. My sculptures, as well as my paintings, can develop very textually or exist as geometric, depending on what I instinctively feel like playing with as my own creative exercise. 
I try not to limit myself into whether something has to aesthetically resemble or appeal to a certain type of beauty or figuration identifiably. However, I take a great interest in pattern making and abstract reduction or emulating a style of work that I admire from my interests within a book, and museum artefacts, which is how I will describe what I make. Sort of artefacts of my life process, as someone who observes and collects and creatively reinterprets, what might be considered a toy or an off-cut or just produce something that is its own very feeling of carving chalk, for example, with a knife in your hand. How it feels to practically build a structure and follow your heart intuitively. Recently where my work has travelled is into this realm of interest in human traces and your own structures or curtains. These attempts at media combination do have their own character, presenting the chosen subject through the process. Not intrinsically linked to the means of getting to its end, but if along the journey, I feel inspired along a different train of thought and emotional narrative, I’ll step through into animal imagery and graphic memorabilia, gift paraphernalia, natural land expanses and conceptual phenomenon. I may choose any one of those things to draw out in detail or explore mark making and take some postcards as my illustrational mood board, toward what I might want to make a picture of. 

 

Ben: My personal practice is predominantly sculpture-based utilising techniques of collage and assemblage. I work with the potential of found objects and recognisable materials. Often aiming transcend the original purpose of things, to transform them into something new, unexpected and perhaps unclear, whilst reflecting on formal compositional elements. This abstraction of materials is rooted in the exploratory playfulness of making, using processes of balancing, adding and subtracting. This all contributes to artworks that often exist in multiple forms over time, often drawing inspiration from various subject matters including: architecture, science fiction and landscape. 

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What do you think of Brighton and Sussex’s cultural offering? 

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Bill: I think Sussex is much vaster than I have so far experienced, and I think there’s a lot of interesting culture offered through the landscape of the Downs, as a colourful geographic glacial deposit. Sussex has points of sudden folkloric influence.
Brighton is like an artistic pocket in the UK and I think there’s a lot of noise which creatively I find very garish. I think there’s a lot. There’s actually a lot of poor taste and a lot of poor skill but, there’s a lot of interesting things being done by young people here. There’s a lot of interesting collective initiatives and community initiatives amongst young people, particularly with music and poetry and there’s a lot of people who make things and don’t talk about it which is completely fine.
I think within particular young minds in Brighton, there’s a great amount of self-taught Craft, from young people who take interest in heritage craft which Sussex can be renowned for in some scenarios. But there’s a lot of people trying new things and weird things, I think being by the seaside is its own cultural offering, you know we have a natural resource and that body of water provides its own reflection point spiritually which is very good for the powers of creative contemplation. 

 

Ben: I think they're two different areas. I think Brighton’s cultural offering is perhaps more focused on music and partying to be honest as opposed to specifically contemporary art. The contemporary art within Brighton is geared towards being commercial and focuses on selling, as opposed to exploring, celebrating and challenging. I actually think the wider Sussex contemporary art scene is very exciting right now big local institutions such as the Towner, De Le Warr Pavillion, Hastings Contemporary and Charleston all seemingly trying to boost the areas links to contemporary art. 

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Do you find Sussex/Brighton an inspiring place to work? 

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Bill: I would and I wouldn’t because I say 2020 to 2022 when I was at university, I made a lot of work about home and I made a lot of work about the inner world. Aspects of autobiographical stories of who I’m missing or where I find places. So much of that has also come from Brighton; it’s seeing all the urban environment and my experiences as a young person. So, I wouldn’t say I find it an inspiring place to work because (work) itself can be very uninspired actually. It can be very gruelling and tedious and fiddly. 
I think Brighton as a young artist is an inspiring place to be leading a very active life, culturally and physically, and to make connections between ‘Self’ and ‘other’ natural and social observations.

I don’t think of inspiration as like this particular magical stimulation point; it’s a better button being pushed and can be reflective and a drop of subtle holistic concentration.
Most inspiring is my experience as one alone, and one a part of many. 

 

Ben: I think the main thing that I'm inspired by specifically in Brighton is the amount of artists and other creative people that are here, it is very easy to have conversations and collaborate with others and to be inspired by what other people are working on. As a city in itself I think it's main attraction is the beach and the landscape surrounding the city. Whether that's inspiring or not to some people, I do get a lot of my materials for sculptures from the beach and I guess in that way it kind of informs my practice slightly. 

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What do you think about the young emerging artist scene in Brighton and Sussex? 

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Bill: I think there’s implicitly a lot of do-it-yourself initiative, and this extends from artists’ individual practices and even their relationship to social media, to the social ground amongst Artists. But these other aspects of collectivism and support and experimentalism, they extend into Artist’s putting on their own shows within alternative exhibition venues, and musicians recording, producing, and releasing their own and each other’s music from home.
What you are sure there is a lot of, is heritage craft and 3-D design and alarming production skills, that need to be championed more with relevant forms of financial support in order today to alleviate the anxiety that we’re facing through social-political factors, and lack of opportunities. 
I find the ‘scene’ very vulnerable and isolated and I don’t think there’s a great example being led by older generations and the commercialism in Brighton and my experience in Uni was informatively and practically damaged, but also disappointing in terms of quality. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of stuff, ‘trends’ of artwork produced and loud opinions shared, I really don’t like. But there’s also a lot of stuff that’s really creatively fresh and that inspiration takes me to meet different people.

It’s what took me to want to start curating a show or two, because I love being involved, and sharing art that I think is good.

 

Ben: I think the emerging art scene in Brighton revolves around the fact that there are so many young artists here. Everyone seems to be very keen on setting their own things up as well as finding new and exciting avenues to kind of open this scene up in Brighton. Right now I do think that Brighton suffers from a lack of spaces and opportunities for these emerging artists to be visible and flourish. Perhaps the Brighton art scene also gets overshadowed by the London scene. I 

think a lot of traffic makes its way to the London art scene, whether it's the emerging one or not and doesn't make its way down to Brighton or the coast. 

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Why did you start curating the art shows? 

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Ben: During the covid-19 pandemic I moved home from my studies at Slade because the building and the studios shut. After the pandemic when moving back to London, I'd reached my third year in my studies without really knowing the logistics of showing my artwork in public. So I decided to organise an exhibition, with my peers from university and from home in Bristol. After realising how much I enjoyed it as well as the organisational process actually not being too intimidating or complicated, I got the bug. I set up the Fresh Salad I have now curated upwards of 10 exhibitions in various locations around the UK. 

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How did you feel when first approached by The Adelaide Salon to collaborate on an art show of emerging artists? 

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Bill: Intrigued and stretched. 

Stretched in terms of anticipating the constraints of the project as well as my personal capacity for current project management in essence. 

You know, also partly indifferent. ‘I’m intrigued enough to creatively contribute to its creation, and I think one should try and avoid over-complicating one project, and it’s difference to another.’

My previous experience as a curator is limited or minimal. 

I just freshly finished creating a group show in January independently and so I felt anticipatory and somewhat anxious to how the ambitions of this idea would practically manifest, and how much that would take from me. But interested in the proposal.

 

Ben: I had just finished curating a show focusing on small sculptures, which was one of the first shows that I've done myself as a solo curator outside of Fresh Salad. The offer to curate another show presented itself as another to continue exploring that avenue of my creative practice. 

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Can you tell us more about ‘Wedding Crashers’ and the concept behind it? 

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Bill: It came about because The Adelaide Salon’s room, aesthetically, emulates an enormous wedding cake. I find that quite funny.  So we wanted to champion primarily young artists, emerging with ambitious material based pieces, and at the same time, subvert presentation in the form of furniture items, therefore the domestic home interior of the (Adelaide) salon, complimenting those artworks as we’ll have them ‘layer’ this scene. Almost as if it’s an environment set for a fictitious theatrical wedding. And these artists’ works, they hold space as their own guest; figures within this wedding, in attendance and baring ‘gifts’, or departure, leaving only ‘traces’ of the party.
The component of a wedding is the event and matrimonial happening of a marriage, bound with witnessed and recorded vows. 
Does this event, and rather the perspective of marriage in verb, apply to an Artist and their predominantly material orientated processes? I want to emphasise also here, we’ve chosen these classical wedding themed materials and colours; white fabric, lace features, paper, and even cake!

Me and Ben both appreciate humour a lot in work and you know all the trinkets and paraphernalia at the wedding reception or at the church ceremonially, are transfigured here into artworks, along with the ‘disguised islands’ of furniture. 
They are misshapen under sheeting into ghost figures, in place of the artist themselves and together support curated couplets. ‘Wedded’ or ‘Match-made’ dialogues between some of the artworks. Their experimental results from how the artist attempts to ‘marry’ elements together materially, and as curators how we experimentally attempt to ‘marry’ different artists’ practices together. 
How we can interpret this between our homes, or through visiting someone else’s, and an artist’s studio work outside of its birthplace. Relating to paper, lace, plastic machinery, crochet, crafting and dexterity. These elemental threads between works have helped me and Ben as curators, reposition and ‘prop-up’, how we address this work within the scene, within the setting of ‘ceremonial’ exhibition. To witness this curatorial ‘marriage’ is to witness our own perception of a celebrated collection of art. Almost microcosmic marriages between an artist in their own process, analysing and processing material theory and limits, with their vision and execution. 
What is it like for someone to use their house as an exhibition platform and a place for collaborative curation? Through this visual metaphor, stuck within a giant wedding cake, the performance of a curated wedding, abandoned clothes, canes, ginormous veils, and the implied position we’re saying you are in as viewers and visitors…you are the ‘Crashers’!  

 

Ben: Wedding Crashers came around from the Adelaide salon being, as a room and a space, curiously resembling the frosting of a wedding cake with its Regency detailing. We wanted to focus on the emerging artists within and the local area so the concept of an artist appearing in this quite historic unusual space with bold new work created a nice visual symmetry to crashing a wedding. 

The show itself will feature most of the artwork on the furniture residing in the Salon. To further this quite funny approach the tables are planning to be covered with white cloth to further resemble some kind of strange colourful dinner party. From a materiality approach as well, the artists featured in the show predominantly use materials in their work that reflect the common materials found at a wedding, such as paper, fabric, cloth. 

I think there will be a great visual comedy of an unwanted guest. I think the artwork inhabiting the space and looking perhaps quite garish or sticking out in a pastel-like room will further this kind of quite comical explosive theme surrounding the exhibition. I hope people will see some artworks as personified objects reflecting themselves as guests at a wedding. 

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What are the biggest challenges of a curatorial practice for you? 

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Bill: Capacity, time, physical, mental, and financial investment. Trying to avoid mistakes. I think the fact I get very paranoid about mistakes, that’s from my fear of not pulling it off well.

Ben: Mainly time and energy, it takes a lot of effort to curate and put on an art exhibition. I also think it is hard to predict, there's always going to be problems and sometimes the show doesn’t come together and you are happy with it until the very last second. 

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What is the most exciting part of being a curator? 

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Bill: Getting to handle work. Getting to be in control of where and how things are seen, or framed, and written about. How to spell out counterparts and compliments between other artworks, drawing connections between diverse artists and diverse fields of physical media. A message to thread between one ‘body’ of curated work is a very challenging thing to do. I wanna do it really well and the anxiety is very challenging to deal with this on a personal level for the feeling of pulling off a nicely coherence, fresh, appealing physical space. Decorated and Enhanced or ‘Activated’ by works sitting within and amongst each other. That’s a very exciting playground to make for yourself and others. 
Sometimes not always that approach can be durable, but in that way, a ‘playground’ offers me an opportunity to use other artworks than my own to sing to me and situationally inform other play ‘things’, and approaches.

 

Ben: To contradict myself, the fact that it's hard to predict, the fact that the show can be anything and end as something different to how it was started. I think what's particularly exciting is getting artworks together which creates something new. Placing shapes, colours, themes and ideas together in harmony and in juxtaposition to create visual conversations. 

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What audience can expect visiting the ‘Wedding Crashers’ exhibition? 

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Ben: An showcase of incredible emerging art presented in a fun yet challenging way. 

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What are your upcoming projects aside from the Wedding Crashers with the Adelaide Salon? 

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Bill: I will soon be producing a new body of work towards an exhibition at the end of July and August, with myself and ceramicist Bruno Sibona, at Gallery 19a @gallery19a and featuring The Farm Artist Project Space for additional installation and poetry presentation. 

‘The Farm’ is my own Project Space, which I founded recently this year and I manage for others to hire availably for exhibitions and an adaptable ‘guerilla’ studio. To facilitate creative production affordably, and develop my inventory of skills and professional development, and develop my own network within a community of artists. 

I use this space myself as a studio when not in use and have been working currently to manage and assist different workshops, music videos, photoshoots, and recording projects for artists. I aim to design and initiate new possibilities for collaborative experimental art making that can happen there, and a whole lot else.  Watch the space @thefarm.artspace

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Ben: The art platform that I run, Fresh Salad, @freshsaladart will be running three art residencies at the Farm Art Space, run by Bill, between May and July this year. The residencies will let artists explore their practice over a two-week period ending with a solo show. Fresh Salad is a platform that supports new and emerging artists through organising exhibitions and events. We have exhibited artwork by hundreds of emerging artists and makers, seeking to showcase the incredible range of creativity in the world today. We do this through organising physical and virtual shows across the UK and beyond. 

Personally for my artistic practice I have some upcoming exhibitions in London, as well as selling some work through Blue Shop Galleries between May and August as part of Work

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What do you think of the Artist Open Houses Festival concept? 

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Bill: I think one of the interesting things about the festival concept is some of what you could term ‘domestic voyeurism’, and the alternative form for staged exhibitions and display collections and commercial, indoor market platforms for artists. 

I think it has great value for honouring and celebrating inside spaces for artists’ production. ‘Work from home’ space or a living space. It’s an interesting format for the ability to say something about our relationship to visiting homes; interior design and curation; and the nature of exhibiting.  

Brighton’s many odd things, places, and work spaces actively used. Our freedom during these weekend to snoop and trespass. 

 

Ben: I think it is interesting that it gives access to artists' houses and living spaces. I think in general the concept of seeing a huge abundance of local creativity is great, but I am perhaps unsure on its focus on commerciality. 

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Where do you see yourself in five years time? 

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Bill: In five years’ time, I’ve got no clue, but I would like to travel further to the Southwest and the North of England in order to explore other pockets of creative community; creative research and ecological creative relationships. Even be helping teach or facilitate aspects of creative method and experimental investigation for other people. As well as producing my work. Completing regional and international residencies personally for my own joy and development. And hopefully driving a motorbike as well. 

A dog and a van wouldn’t be half bad either though.

 

Ben: I am unsure, I will continue to be creative in every single area that I'm already creative in. Continuing my artistic practice, my curatorial practice, continuing Fresh Salad and fingers crossed, I would love a job in the creative industry affiliated with arts, some kind of arts organisation and production. It's something I devote so much time to and I am motivated to make it my career.